1919 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

Monarch - George V

Prime Minister - David Lloyd George (coalition)

Events

1 January – In Scotland, HMS Iolaire is wrecked on rocks: 205 die.

3 January – Soldiers blockade Folkestone harbour in a successful protest against being returned to France.

18 January – Bentley Motors Ltd. is incorporated in England.

21 January – Dáil Éireann meets for the first time in the Mansion House, Dublin. It comprises Sinn Féin members elected in the 1918 general election who, in accordance with their manifesto, have not taken their seats in the Parliament of the United Kingdom but chosen to declare an independent Irish Republic. In the first shots of the Anglo-Irish War, two Royal Irish Constabulary men are killed in an ambush at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary.

23 January – "Harbour Riot" in Glasgow: confrontation between white and black merchant seamen.

27 January – General strike call in Glasgow and Belfast.

31 January – Battle of George Square: The Army is called in (with tanks) to deal with riots and protests against high rents in Glasgow.

3 February – Éamon de Valera, the leader of Sinn Féin, and two other prisoners escape from Lincoln Prison in England in a break personally arranged by Michael Collins and Harry Boland.

27 February – Marriage of Princess Patricia of Connaught to Commander The Hon. Alexander Ramsay, the first royal wedding at Westminster Abbey since the 14th century.

4–5 March – Kinmel Park Riots by troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force awaiting repatriation at Kinmel Camp, Bodelwyddan, in North Wales. Five men are killed, 28 injured, and 25 convicted of mutiny.

3 April – Government agrees to begin release of imprisoned conscientious objectors.

7 April – The Original Dixieland Jazz Band brings Dixieland jazz to England, opening a 15-month tour at the Hippodrome, London.

13 April – Amritsar Massacre: British and Gurkha troops kill 379 Sikhs and injure more than 1200 at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab Province (British India).

May – Beginning of the Third Anglo-Afghan War.

12 May – The Pip, Squeak and Wilfred comic strip debuts in the Daily Mirror.

29 May – Observations made by Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse test part of Einstein's general theory of relativity (confirmed 19 November).

June – Riots break out in west midlands towns.

14–15 June – A Vickers Vimy piloted by John Alcock DSC with navigator Arthur Whitten Brown makes the first nonstop transatlantic flight, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland.

17 June – Epsom Riot by Canadian troops: English police sergeant Thomas Green is killed.

21 June – Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow: Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the interned German fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland. Nine German sailors are killed.

28 June – Treaty of Versailles signed.

2–6 July – The British airship R34 makes the first transatlantic flight by dirigible, and the first westbound flight, from RAF East Fortune, Scotland, to Mineola, New York.

15 July – Sloops HMS Gentian and HMS Myrtle sunk by mines in the Gulf of Finland while assisting Estonia against the Bolsheviks, with nine crew lost.

18 July – The Cenotaph in London, as designed by Edwin Lutyens, is unveiled to commemorate the dead of World War I.

19 July – Peace Day: Victory parades across Britain celebrate the end of World War I. Rioting ex-servicemen burn down Luton Town Hall.

31 July

Police strike in London and Liverpool for recognition of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers. Rioting breaks out in Liverpool on 1 August. Over 2,000 strikers are dismissed.

Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 provides government subsidy for the provision of council houses, with the target of completing 500,000 houses by 1922.

8 August – Treaty of Rawalpindi ends the Third Anglo-Afghan War.

15 August – The Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act provides for returning servicemen to get their old jobs back.

19 August – Afghanistan gains independence from the United Kingdom.

30 August – The Football League is resumed, four years after it was abandoned due to the war.

1 September – Forestry Commission set up.

27 September – Last British troops leave Archangel, Russia, and leave fighting to the Russians.

13 October – Leeds City F.C., of the Football League Second Division, are expelled from the Football League amid financial irregularities.

17 October – With the collapse of Leeds City, a new football club is formed for the city – Leeds United. With Port Vale set to take the old club's place in the Football League, the new Leeds club will have to wait until at least the next football season for a chance of Football League membership.

20 October – Collapse of the man engine at Levant Mine in Cornwall kills 31.

4 November – The Cabinet's Irish Committee settles on a policy of creating two Home Rule parliaments in Ireland - one in Dublin and one in Belfast - with a Council of Ireland to provide a framework for possible unity.

11 November – First Remembrance Day observed with two minutes silence at 11:00 hrs.

December – The Cunliffe Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchange Rates recommends an early return to an effective Gold standard.

1 December – Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor becomes the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons, and the second to be elected, having stood at the Plymouth Sutton by-election on 28 November to succeed her husband as a Unionist member.

15 December – Meat rationing ends.

22 December – A Bill "to provide for the better government of Ireland" is introduced into the House of Commons, proposing two parliaments: one for the six counties of north-east Ulster and one for the other twenty-six.

23 December – The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act removes legal disabilities on women entering the secular professions.

25 December – Opening of Cliftonhill stadium in Coatbridge, the home of Albion Rovers F.C. The opening match sees them lose 2–0 to St Mirren.

30 December – Lincoln's Inn, in London, admits its first female bar student.

Undated

Creation of the "Mobile Patrol Experiment", the forerunner of the Metropolitan Police Service's Flying Squad.

By bribing corrupt Iranians liberally, the UK negotiates a treaty allowing the installation of British advisers in every department of the government. The Majlis refuses to ratify the treaty.

Ongoing – 1918 flu pandemic.

Publications

February - Richmal Crompton's anarchic schoolboy William Brown is introduced in the first published Just William story, "Rice-Mould" in Home magazine.

22 March - The Children's Newspaper begins publication.

Daisy Ashford's novel The Young Visiters (written in 1890 when she was nine).

Gilbert Frankau's novel Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant: a romance of married life.

Dean William Inge's first series of Outspoken Essays.

John Maynard Keynes' book The Economic Consequences of the Peace.

W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence.

Siegfried Sassoon's The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon.

Arthur Graeme West's posthumous The Diary of a Dead Officer.

P. G. Wodehouse's short story collection My Man Jeeves.

Births

21 January

Eric Brown, World War II naval & test pilot (died 2016)

Jim Wallwork, World War II glider pilot (died 2013)

23 January - Bob Paisley, football player and manager (died 1996)

23 February - Derek Ezra, chairman of the National Coal Board (died 2015)

24 February - Betty Marsden, comedy actress (died 1998)

9 April - Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Officer of Arms and genealogist (died 1985)

20 April - Richard Hillary, pilot and author (died 1943)

29 May - Arthur English, actor (died 1995)

14 May - Denis Cannan, dramatist, playwright and scriptwriter (died 2011)

18 May - Margot Fonteyn, born Margaret Hookham, ballet dancer (died 1991)

17 June - Beryl Reid, actress (died 1996)

7 July - Jon Pertwee, actor (died 1996)

10 July - Ian Wallace, bass-baritone opera singer (died 2009)

15 July - Iris Murdoch, Irish-born novelist and philosopher (died 1999)

19 July - Patricia Medina, actress (died 2012)

26 July - James Lovelock, scientist and proponent of the Gaia hypothesis

1 August - Stanley Middleton, novelist (died 2009)

28 August - Godfrey Hounsfield, electrical engineer and inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 2004)

27 September - James H. Wilkinson, mathematician (died 1986)

4 October - John Sawyer, romance novelist in collaboration with his wife Nancy Buckingham (died 1994)

5 October - Donald Pleasence, actor (died 1995)

6 October - Tommy Lawton, footballer (died 1996)

22 October - Doris Lessing, Persian-born novelist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (died 2013)

31 October - Daphne Oxenford, broadcast actress (died 2012)

15 November - Nova Pilbeam, actress (died 2015)

19 November - Alan Young, English-born character actor (died 2016 in the United States)

20 November - Lucilla Andrews, Egyptian-born romantic novelist (died 2006)

11 December - Cliff Michelmore, broadcast presenter (died 2016)

Deaths

2 January - Arthur Gould, Wales international rugby captain (born 1864)

3 January - James Hills-Johnes, Indian-born Welsh Victoria Cross recipient (born 1833)

12 January - Sir Charles Wyndham, actor-manager (born 1837)

18 January - Prince John of the United Kingdom (born 1905)

24 February - Edward Bishop, Wales international rugby player (born 1864)

27 February - Robert Harris, Welsh-born painter (born 1849)

20 March - Pauline Markham, English-born vaudeville actress (born 1847)

4 April - William Crookes, chemist and physicist (born 1832)

12 June - Thomas Jeremiah Williams, Coalition Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Swansea East (born 1872)

14 June - Weedon Grossmith, humorous writer, actor and artist (born 1854)

30 June - John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1842)

13 July - Theo Harding, Wales international rugby player (born 1860)

26 July

Richard Hughes Williams (Dic Tryfan), Welsh-language writer (born 1878)

Edward Poynter, painter (born 1836)

11 August - Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American philanthropist (born 1835)

21 August - Laurence Doherty, tennis champion (born 1875)

15 October - Arthur Owen Vaughan (Owen Rhoscomyl), English-born Welsh writer (born 1863)

17 October - James Wolfe-Murray, British Army general (born 1853)

18 October - William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, American-born financier and statesman (born 1848)

25 October - Ernest Albert Waterlow, painter (born 1850)

18 December - Sir John Alcock, aviator, pilot of first nonstop transatlantic flight by aeroplane, June 1919, in aviation accident (born 1892)